Des Plaines Theater

1476 Miner Street,

Des Plaines,
IL60016

The principals of Pereira & Pereira, the firm that did the 1935 remodeling of the Des Plaines Theatre, were William Pereira and Hal Pereira. Percival Pereira was an older architect who was never a member of this firm.

That was nothing. It was totally contained within the furnace room; I stopped in later that day and it was already vacuumed up. I wouldn’t have known anything had happened unless someone told me. Literally just a dirty furnace.

I remember going to the Des Plaines when I was a little kid. At the time it was a twin second run theatre. It was dark. It also had a strange shape (like all such conversions): graceful curve on one side, straight wall on the other. I remember a few plaster details covered with one color of paint. But that was the only vestige of the old days. If you can say anything about the 70’s & 80’s it is that twin conversions kept some of these places from being demolished long enough for alternative uses to arise.

I honestly didn’t think anything good was going to happen here, based on what I perceived to be the attitude of the owner. But it seems like better days may be ahead.

Are you sure that the Des Plaines is still in operation because
I passed by about two weeks ago and there was newspaper covering
the doors and the marquee had some PSA type of message on it.
Place looks extremely neglected from the outside.